“Samuel!” I shout, my voice tight, raw, panicked.

I can’t see him through the blinding cloud of dust and particles of debris that hovers in the air, moving slowly as it spreads out in the direction the soft breeze carries it.

I turn to Elle. “Get into the truck and wait there.”

Nodding, she pushes off the ground and breaks into a run toward our vehicles. AS I get to my feet, a sharp sting of pain runs down my leg. I don’t remember hitting it anywhere, but it fucking hurts to the bone. Limping back to the house, I enter the thick dust fog, going by feel to find the kitchen door. Visibility is zero. It takes me a while, but my hand bumps into the lifted wood of a door frame.

“Samuel?” I call out. “If you can hear me, say something, make a noise with anything you can find close to you. Come on, Sammy, tell me how to find you.”

I feel like the worst best friend ever for causing a disastrous day like this to take shape. Guilt and shame overcome me. I crouch low and start to feel my way along the floor, working back where I think is the last place he was standing when he pushed us out of the way.

The man’s a hero.

He doesn’t deserve this fate.

“Sammy, my brother,” I call. “Answer me, buddy. Try to say something. I’m not leaving here without you. Leave no one behind.”

My eyes well up as memories of our last mission surface. This is all too fucking familiar. We didn’t survive a fucking IED explosion in the middle of the desert to be put down by a fucking dilapidated log cabin.

No way.

Anger and desperation fill my chest, tightening it to the point where I can barely breathe. I pat the ground at intervals. He has to be around here. The tip of one finger touches the edge of a pile of debris and broken shit. Feeling my way around the perimeter, I bump a rough, hard surface, and once I press my fingers against it, I can tell it’s the tread of big boots.

“Samuel. Hang on, buddy. I got you now.” I use brute force to push the larger pieces of rubble that he’s buried under. It takes a while, but one by one, I get everything out of the way and when I do, he coughs out a painful grunt.

Thank fuck.

He’s breathing.

Scrambling to my feet, I drag my best friend out from the filthy wreckage. Outside, I brace my leg against the outer wall, placing him over one shoulder as I carry him to our truck.

“It took you long enough, motherfucker,” Samuel groans out once in the passenger seat.

“Jesus. You scared the fuck out of me, Sammy. Glad to have you back.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Do you feel like anything’s broken?”

“Just your fucking jaw when I’m done with you later,” he teases.

I smile with relief. “You got jokes. You must be fine.”

“Yeah, I probably got bruised ribs and internal bleeding, but I’ll just fucking walk it off.”

“So we’re good?”

“Yeah… as long as you got Elle out, we’re fan-fucking-tastic.”

“I did. She’s fine. I told her to wait in the tr—” I start to say, turning to squint through the thick air. “Fuck.”

“What?” he asks.

I step away from the passenger door of our truck. Elle’s vehicle’s gone.

Again.

“She left.”

He struggles to turn, looking down the driveway to the main road. “That woman’s a slippery one, isn’t she?”

“Fuck.”

“Not that you can blame her. Fuck, Bastian. Why didn’t you just talk to her, or even better, just give the woman her stuff back? Why’d you have to hold onto them things for all this time?”

His question is more to chastise me than to get an answer. I can’t fault him for thinking that way. He’s right. I went about this whole thing all wrong.

Getting into the driver side, I start the engine and head back to our cabin, clinging to the hope that she’d be there.

Not a chance.

There’s no vehicle outside when we arrive. No sign of Elle inside. And no duffle bag of her things. Going back to the truck, I help Samuel out and take him inside, setting him down on the sofa.

“Get me some water, will you?” he asks weakly.

“All right. Maybe I should drive you down to the resort clinic,” I tell him as I leave the room toward the kitchen.

“I’m fine…. Except for the way you fucked up the best thing we had going on in years,” he grunts.

I stop short when I see the pale pink folded square of paper on the kitchen table. It’s from Elle’s notepad. She left us a note?

Stepping over to it, I’m hesitant to read the pretty feminine lettering of those words written by her hands.

Samuel and Bastian,

I can’t thank you enough for everything.

This hurts, leaving like this. I’m so sorry. I hope Samuel is okay. Please don’t hate me. I’ll miss our time on this mountain.

xo

Elle.

Elle’s apologizing to us? The note makes no sense. I’m the one who wronged her. I take the letter to Samuel so he can read it himself. I can’t even hazard a guess as to what this means.